My 2025 coin show reports: ANA Oklahoma City and Denver Coin Club

dcarr

A little late, but here it is.

First was the Denver Coin Club show at the Jefferson County fairgrounds in Golden Colorado.
The show organizer increased the number of dealer tables. Public attendance was about average (same as last time, but with more dealers the activity was spread a little thinner). But I had a better table location this time, and new products, so I did pretty well selling and trading. It was a two-day show (Friday and Saturday). Rather than driving 1.5 hours north to get home for Friday night, my wife and I elected to go 35 minutes west to Blackhawk where I could get a free room and free buffet at the nice casino hotel. After eating I decided to hit the card tables for a while and came out $2,100 ahead ! Saturday we went back to the show for the day. Overall, it was a decent show and fairly convenient as well.

I traded some of my products towards this group of silver dollars. The prices on the two expensive ones were discounted quite a bit:

This un-certified 1909 Barber Quarter caught my eye and I bought it:


This Gold Standard Corporation silver set seemed favorably priced, so I acquired it on impulse. These have ties to Engelhard:

The following week was the ANA Oklahoma City World's Fair of Money.
I did not sign up for a table or hotel until almost the last minute. But I obtained a prime corner table location due to the cancellation of another dealer. We decided to drive to the show since it wasn't excessively far (740 miles from here). Due to all the necessary preparation work and product fabrication, I had to stay up very late working and we got a very late start. We finally hit the road on Monday afternoon. My daughter drove while I slept for the first part of the trip. In eastern Colorado we encountered some strong thunderstorms and drove through some deep hail on the highway. This is unusual for August. We eventually arrived at the hotel in Oklahoma City shortly after midnight.

My goals for the show were: 1) promote my consignment in the Heritage Auction; 2) Submit some coins for grading; 3) sell some product, of course; 4) Attend some talks; and 5) generally network and "schmooze" with important coin folks.

I did not end up seeing much of Oklahoma City, but the venue was nice and the area around it appeared to be clean and relatively safe. Overall, the attendance was moderately good. The busiest day for us was actually Thursday.

I sold a quantity of my new products and some unrelated exonumia. My daughter had a debut of her Alchemy silver rounds (Fire and Water), as well as more of her line of "Mellilla" brand silver bars.

I had a group of coins to get graded, so I submitted them early to NGC for show turn-around. The results of this grading was, for the most part, favorable. This alone made the trip worthwhile.

One item was a coin that I had attempted and failed to get graded previously by multiple services, and the previous owner of it had also attempted to get it graded and failed. It is one of the 10 engraved 1921-D Morgan Dollars. Since there had been no auction appearances of this 7th coin since 1922, the grading companies were previously reluctant to certify it. But I knew it was genuine and this time it finally worked, receiving a grade of AU58.

Another notable item I had graded was a GOLD 1925 Norse American medal. The result: matte proof PF66.

Two other grading scores were: 1909-O Native-Head $5 gold Half Eagle (AU55) and 1856-D gold Dollar (AU58).

Three years ago I had purchased on eBay an un-certified 1855 Large Cent that I thought might be a proof. There was a discussion thread about it at that time: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1081157/1855-large-cent-is-this-a-proof
I showed it to several experts and the general opinion is that it is a nice coin and proof-like with nice color, but not an actual proof. A year ago I had submitted to to PCGS and the result at that time was "questionable color". I disagreed with that and so this time I submitted it for grading to NGC. The result was MS64BN. I agree with the "64" and the "BN" parts. But I think it should be designated "PL" at least.

With some new slabs in hand, I decided to submit some of them for "stickering". I had never done that before. But the show was a convenient place to do it since the necessary persons were there.

In February at the Long Beach show I consigned to auction my Peace Dollar "Broken Sword" cast bronze model. The Heritage auction lot was scheduled to end a week after the ANA show was over. I had high hopes for a strong result. During the show I promoted it whenever an appropriate opportunity arose. During most of the show, however, the item languished at only $3,600 bid. I was quite concerned since there was no reserve on the lot. Fortunately, the live bidding at the end was pretty strong and it ended at $132,000 (with buyer's premium included): https://coins.ha.com/itm/a/1385-3260.s

I did not buy much at the show. But I did finally manage to acquire the rare 1939-1940 Buick encased Canada Dollar for my collection of encased silver dollars:

I bought two other coins that grabbed my attention because they looked nice and the seller's grades (and/or prices) were lower than my assessments:

The show seemed perhaps one day too long, but I still enjoyed all of it and stayed until the very end. On Saturday afternoon we decided to start our drive back early, rather than waiting until Sunday morning. On the drive to the show days earlier I had noticed a hotel/casino south of Wichita Kansas near I35. We decided to head for the "Kansas Star". I like staying at nicer casino hotels because they have better security (inside and outside) than other hotels. Regardless, we still did not leave any valuables in the car. After checking in, I once again decided to hit the tables. It only took about 20 minutes when I got four 6s in a 5-card game. That hand paid about $1,500. I played several more hours and ended up $2,200 ahead. I'm on a roll ! But once again I stayed up way too late so my daughter did the driving in the morning.

One last positive observation about the show is that I have not heard any reports of thefts or other criminal activity.

pcgscacgold

Great report Dan. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Great additions.

Look forward to some new items from you.

giorgio11

Really a thorough and excellent report(s) Dan, thanks a lot for that!

Kind regards,

George

messydesk

@dcarr said:

One item was a coin that I had attempted and failed to get graded previously by multiple services, and the previous owner of it had also attempted to get it graded and failed. It is one of the 10 engraved 1921-D Morgan Dollars. Since there had been no auction appearances of this 7th coin since 1922, the grading companies were previously reluctant to certify it. But I knew it was genuine and this time it finally worked, receiving a grade of AU58.

Congrats on getting this graded. While there hasn't been a VAM number assigned to it yet or a match found with an existing VAM, there are pictures of the die markers from coin #9 on VAMWorld.

seatedlib3991

Not much of an expert on some of these coins but would buy that 1927-d Std. Qtr. any time anywhere. congrats. james

CaptHenway

You mention a Norse in gold.

I have long propounded the theory that the thick silver Norse Medals were struck on planchets punched out of silver dollar stock, and the thin silver Norse Medals on planchets punched out of half dollar stock. Philadelphia did make commemorative halves in 1925.

Any idea as to stock any of the gold Norse Medal planchets might have been punched out of? Obviously the Philadelphia Mint had the equipment to make any stock it needed, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the matter.

braddick

Great show report!
I agree, your large cent deserved a PL designation and certainly, if not that, a STAR.
I bet CAC will love it (if that was also one of the coins you dropped off to them).

JeffersonFrog

Nice summaries, and nice coins. I love that 1909 Barber quarter!

thebeav

Looks like some neat stuff.
Congrats on your bronze model !

pointfivezero

Hey Dan,

Sorry I missed you at the show. Nice write up and great to see some of your usual eclectic pick-ups. Congrats on the casino winnings. I'm driving from Kansas City to Phoenix next month and may make a detour to give back some of the money you won.

Tim

Elcontador

That 09 Quarter has a minimal touch of wear on the hair above the eyebrow (hence the AU grade). A grader in a hurry could miss it.